A little over seven years ago, I started working for Food & Water Watch as the New Jersey Campaign Manager. Now, I'm excited to work on a new project organizing to help bring about a clean energy future, one community at a time, building on our successful model of working with communities to secure our access to safe food and clean water.

Before applying for a job at Food & Water Watch, I had never heard of the organization, but was excited to see it was taking on issues of water privatization, something that nobody in New Jersey seemed to be interested in addressing.

Like the fight to keep Trenton's water public, many of these fights were successful and against tremendous odds. Of all of these ongoing fights, the fight to end our use of fossil fuels is more important than ever.

Working as a movement, I believe we will ban fracking everywhere like we did in New York[5], and in hundreds of communities across the country. I believe this because the alternative is death: Death for those living on the front lines who have poisoned air and water[6], death for those who live next to refineries and breathe toxic air[7], and death to those who are having their lives destroyed by climate change induced drought, sea level rise[8], and starvation[9]. But banning fracking is not enough; we need to build a political system and energy system that puts human rights and environmental protection above the interests of corporate greed.

That is why I am excited to take on a new position at Food & Water Watch to build out a renewable energy program that will aggressively push for 100% renewable energy, and put our energy future in the hands of a people powered movement that values human rights and environmental protection above profits.

Using Our Successful Model to Demand Clean Energy

We will be pushing for stronger net metering policies, which will ensure that people who put solar power on their homes will be able to sell that energy to utilities at the same rate the utility charges them. We will work to establish and strengthen community solar programs that will allow local organizations, businesses and neighbors to establish solar farms to power their community. We will work to increase public financing of renewable energy to make it more affordable. Finally, we will work to establish strong benchmarks for renewable energy development to ensure utilities have a clear and accountable plan to end their use of fossil fuels and ensure a rapid transition to a clean energy future.

The odds in this fight look like they are stacked against us when you consider that a Trump cabinet[10] is poised to be filled with climate deniers, former oil executives, and people who have trampled on civil rights. We must continue to resist what will certainly be significant attacks on the gains we have made, but in addition to resisting the Trump administration, we can win real victories for clean energy at the state and local level. These victories will help us chart a path for new administration to follow for a sustainable future.

These victories will come from our ability to continue building on the campaigns we have mobilized in the past. This means building broad-based coalitions for renewable energy, calling our neighbors to action, holding elected officials accountable, and creating a strong uncompromising vision for the world we want to live in.

We can mobilize in our communities by volunteering to set up tables at farmers markets or showing a documentary film in a local library. Social media can also be a powerful platform for reaching our friends and neighbors with important actions they can take to help create a real clean energy future. You can contact a local Food & Water Watch office[17] and ask one of our community organizers how you can help build the movement.

Most importantly, we can continue to create a vision for the world we want to live in. When Food & Water Watch became the first national organization to call for a ban on fracking, we were criticized by people who were our allies on many issues, who told us we were being unrealistic and unstrategic. But since we launched that effort, we have banned fracking in New York, had a leading presidential candidate make a ban on fracking central to his energy vision[18], and built a movement with over 900 organizations in all 50 states[19]. We can do that for renewable energy and we can start today.

I am looking forward to leading the Clean Energy Revolution forward with all of you. Onward!